Taking Bad Policy Ideas Off the Table and News for the Week of March 20-26

Taking Bad Policy Ideas Off the Table and News for the Week of March 20-26

3/26/2010 3:51:29 PM

Lots of new developments in the world of children's health, an upcoming child abuse prevention rally and a free symposium on juvenile corrections, evidence-based strategies for fighting poverty, and children's mental health going digital are all in this week's news. Of course, the big story since our last Friday round-up is the passage of national health reform.

Many reporters have covered what the new law means for kids, families, insurers, and those with special health care needs (such as this heartbreaking article about a newborn in yesterday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram). But perhaps the strangest piece this week appeared in the Texas Tribune and on some public radio stations. In "No CHIP Shot,” the question was what the health care bill means for the Texas budget, not because of new expansions in Medicaid coverage— the federal government covers all those through 2017—but because, moving forward, our state won't have the option of closing budget gaps the way it has in the past: by throwing kids off the health care rolls.

There's also a principle at play. When we make children an expendable bargaining chip in the inevitable back-and-forth over budgets, we are calling kids "extra,” suggesting somehow that services to them can be taken or left on a whim. This happens despite all evidence to the contrary that these investments deliver vital, proven results.

Services for children are like infrastructure—the things we share a stake in together, because our whole economy, public health system, you name it, requires getting this very basic thing right. Just as we don't shut water treatment facilities or turn off the electric grid or close highways in tough budget years, neither should we discuss cutting off what works for kids. We pay far more later if we do. Let's just agree some ideas aren't worth entertaining.